children's health

**This is not a petition to stop the new Spec’s store from moving into Greenville. It is a simple signage request.** The new Spec's Liquor Store approved by city council via a Conditional Use Permit to move into the old Bealls location at the Greenville Promenade in Greenville, TX intends to use a cartoon bunny (their company logo) on the store front of the new Greenville location. I am seeking community support to ask Spec's and the Greenville, TX city mayor and councilmembers to exclude the "cute" bunny from their store sign in our town. There are 150+ Spec's locations across Texas. From review of all of the store fronts approximately ~25% of the locations exclude the bunny from the logo, the other ~75% use the cartoon character on their signage. It is a normal part of Spec’s business to have stores without their company logo.  In my opinion reinforced by my own child as well as other children in our community. The use of the cartoon logo on the store front appeals to children. It sends a message that the store is a fun place for them rather than a store for adults. Conditioning through marketing is a very real thing. Many remember when Joe Camel was retired in the 90s for the same reason of being appealing and recognizable to young children.  It is legal and within the council's abilities to amend the Conditional Use Permit (CUP) that was approved on January 12, 2021. I am asking that the CUP be amended at the next council meeting on January 26, 2021 to still approve the store to move into the old Bealls location but to specify that no cartoon character can be used on the signage (just words). The asked for amendment regarding the signage would be inline with what our own Planning and Zoning Committee approved on January 11, 2021 after hearing from citizens present at their meeting. Unfortunately at the initial CUP approval by city council the recommendation from P&Z was not upheld. Please join me in asking our mayor and city council to make the needed amendment as well as asking Spec's to do the right thing for our children - keep the cute bunny off of our local store sign!

The majority of playgrounds within many Rio Grande Valley (RGV), TX city parks have been closed since around March 2020. While well-intentioned, there's been no communication regarding parameters required to re-open our playgrounds for children to play. [Chart of open vs. closed city playgrounds across the State of Texas for reference.] The goal of this petition is to prompt local RGV city and county-level officials to re-open playgrounds. The alternative, acceptable result would be to clearly communicate what benchmarks we can expect as communities to allow for playground re-openings.  Many Texas cities never closed playgrounds or have already re-opened given the lack of evidence supporting playgrounds are a source of virus-spread. “There is no science that indicates a playground or overnight camping is more dangerous than hiking or going to the beach,” said Dr. Monica Gandhi, medical professor of infectious diseases at the University of California-San Francisco. “Outdoors is much more safe than indoors and we should be encouraging activities and exercise during this difficult time as we get to the final stretch of the pandemic waiting for vaccines. Moreover, surface transmission is not a factor in spread. This is a respiratory virus.” There are discrepancies among RGV cities as to which cities are allowed to have playgrounds opened & this is confusing and contradicting to the narrative that playgrounds are "unsafe." [See chart] Not every family has access to a safe neighborhood, personal playground equipment, or backyard to play in. While parks are open, the utilization rate has dropped since playgrounds are not available.  We believe that issues such as lack of access to playgrounds are further exacerbating the challenges children face in this region such as childhood obesity and other socioeconomic disadvantages that prevent them from using indoor, commercial facilities for play that are proved to be less safe. “Playgrounds are not optional, they are essential. Play is how children develop executive function, cognitive abilities and gross motor skills. Playgrounds are vital urban infrastructure, particularly for those who live without equitable access to outdoor space. The need for structured places to play outside is especially important now, when children are stuck at home without in-person school, team sports or physical education. Not only do swings and slides in playgrounds let kids get the exercise they need for healthy sleep patterns, but outside play is also critical in helping kids settle down for online learning.” Guidelines such as mask-wearing would still be required and parents would be responsible for assisting children with distancing and hand-sanitization. City parks may also place an occupancy limit and hand-sanitizing stations. The discretion of parents, as in many other locations (playground or non) is something that we face in our decision-making process and the same applies to playground use. This petition does not, in any way, make light of the seriousness of the pandemic. We acknowledge that the spread of this virus in a playground setting is not 100% preventable and realize that many city decisions are to avoid liability and community spread. However, the consequences of not re-opening are very serious and will have long-term effects on children's mental and physical well-being in the RGV communities. Thank you for joining your voice to address this important issue.  ----------------------------------------------- OPEN City Playgrounds Parks in Texas: *RGV: Brownsville, South Padre Island, Weslaco, Donna, Laguna Vista*  San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Baytown, Galveston, Beaumont, Kingsville, Del Rio, Uvalde, Victoria, Dallas, Frisco, El Paso, Alpine, Plano, Ft Worth, Denton, Waco, Abilene, Pearland, Pasadena, Sugarland, The Woodlands, McKinney, Southlake, Grapevine, Tyler, Keller, Richardson, Hays County, Midland, Odessa, Lubbock, Kerrville, Beeville, Pflugerville, San Marcos, Round Rock, Temple, Boerne, Fredericksburg, San Angelo, Wichita Falls, Longview  ------------------------------------------------ CLOSED City Playgrounds Parks in Texas: *RGV: Harlingen, San Benito, Edinburg, McAllen, Mission, Pharr, Los Fresnos, Cameron County, Port Isabel, La Feria, Raymondville, Mercedes, Rio Hondo, Combes, La Joya, Rio Grande City, Progreso, Laredo* Austin, Houston [Data verified with City Reps / Parks & Rec offices as of 1.11.21] ------- Only approx. 5% of the 90% of open playgrounds in TX bother to disinfect because it is deemed unnecessary and not a good use of funding.   "COVID-19 spreads less commonly through contact with contaminated surfaces" https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/how-covid-spreads.html -------Here are what the experts are saying---- "Easing restrictions in outdoor spaces (such as playgrounds and parks), while emphasizing the importance of non-pharmaceutical interventions such as masking, ventilation, and social distancing indoors might have been more effective," he said. "I think we would have gotten more buy-in and perhaps had greater adherence from the population." David Aronoff, MD, of Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville - LINK -------------------------“The good news is that outdoor activities are generally considered to be safer than indoor ones, and surface transmission is “not thought to be the main way the virus spreads,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There have been more than 60,000 papers published related to covid-19, and playgrounds have not been identified as a significant source of transmission”  - Stefan Baral, an associate professor in the epidemiology department at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health LINK ------------------------- “It is, however, now well known that COVID transmission is far more efficient indoors than it is outdoors. Moreover, surface transmission in outdoor settings has been rarely, if ever, documented. Finally, many European countries, which never closed playgrounds, have not established playgrounds as a significant source of transmission. Families with small children across the United States are struggling without access to this valuable community resource. Families in more economically marginalized communities, in particular, are struggling because they are less likely to have access to either private backyards or membership-based private green spaces.” LINK “Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has come under heavy criticism for the closure of children’s playgrounds when the administration has repeatedly said being outdoors is safer than being indoors and there is little evidence of virus spread on playground structures.” LINK

We are asking our city leaders to make our health our children their priority over weed control. It should be a basic human right for our children to be protected from harmful pesticides where they play.  Did you know that NYC’s City maintained property is frequently sprayed with carcinogenic and endocrine disrupting pesticides?  Glyphosate(active ingredient in Roundup) and 2,4-D(active ingredient in Speedzone).   It should be a basic human right for our children to be protected in the parks and playgrounds where they play.  The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a division of the World Health Organization (WHO), declared that glyphosate, may cause cancer in humans and recently upheld this evaluation in January of 2018. Despite this warning, the City of New York continues to spray glyphosate and other toxic pesticides and herbicides mostly for cosmetic landscaping purposes, i.e., to kill weeds and control pests. Not only does the World Health Organization's cancer agency state glyphosate is "possibly carcinogenic to humans.” Last April a public health agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), released the long-awaited Draft Toxicological Profile for Glyphosate. And, it supports and strengthens the 2015 cancer assessment of another health agency, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). "We’ve been studying the impact of toxins on children for the past 30 years and reached the inescapable conclusion: little things matter. We’ve discovered that extremely low levels of toxins can impact brain development. The American Academy of Pediatrics states that there is “no safe level of pesticide exposure for children.” - Non Toxic Neighborhood's advisor Dr. Bruce Lanphear Thankfully today there are cost effective and proven solutions! Harvard University successfully switched to a organic management in 2009. Today over 50 cities across the U.S. including Irvine, California have placed organically driven policies or bans in place to protect their residents and their cities from these harmful pesticides.  Since 2016 the City of Irvine has successfully, and organically, maintained all pest pressure from weeds to rodents, on more than 570 acres of community and neighborhood parks, athletic fields; over 6,000 acres of open space, over 800 acres of public right-of-way, including street medians and parkways; 70,000 trees; and nearly 1.5 million square feet of facilities. The City of Irvine has demonstrated that you can have beautiful parks, athletic fields, and open space, that meet community expectations, without the use of harmful pesticides. , and we would like to see New York City join in this critical and responsible endeavor. PLEASE SIGN THIS PETITION to demonstrate to our representatives in NYC that you want them to stop "allowing" and using harmful pesticides in our parks, and switch to an organically driven landscaping policy. For more information, please visit our partners website: www.nontoxicneighborhoods.org  Watch this video, Little Things Matter, to learn how toxins damage the developing brain. Non Toxic Neighborhood's Advisors:Bruce Blumberg, Professor of Developmental and Cell Biology in UCI’s School of Biological Sciences and Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Biomedical Engineering.“The major challenge with showing that a chemical causes cancer in humans [as opposed to animals] is that the cancer typically develops many years after exposure.” Bruce Blumberg Bruce Lanphear, MD, MPH, Epidemiologist, Professor Simon Fraser University Director of Children’s Health and Environmental "Toxins can have a life-long impact on children. We’ve also discovered that even extremely low levels of toxins can impact brain development. By allowing children to be exposed to toxins or chemicals of unknown toxicity, we are unwittingly using our children in a massive experiment." Bruce Lanphear Philip J. Landrigan, MD, MSc, FAAP, Dean for Global Health. Professor of Preventive Medicine and PediatricsArnhold Institute for Global Health Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai“Pregnant women, infants and young children are especially vulnerable to toxic chemicals in their environments. Even extremely low-dose exposures during these vulnerable periods in early life can result in lasting damage. This is why it is so important to protect the most sensitive among us. By protecting them, we preserve the health of all.” Philip J. Landrigan, MD, MSc, FAAP Dean Baker, MD, MPH Director, Center for Occupational and Environmental Health Professor of Medicine, Pediatrics, and Epidemiology University of California, Irvine Dr. Zach Bush, triple board certified in Internal Medicine, Endocrinology and Metabolism, and Hospice and Palliative Care Thank you! Bruce, Jenn, Phil, Dean, Stephanie, Kim, Lauren, Seamus, Zach, Andrea, Finian and the rest of us!

September 18, 2020Dear Justice of Peace of the Riviera: It is my strong belief after carefully reading the Convention on The Rights of The Child, that Switzerland is in breach of several Articles. No Swiss Executive Branch has facilitated and provided Hague Convention Access Rights since March 2020, almost 7 months. Since April 2020, a conviction record from the Prosecutor in Fribourg provided details of how my daughter, Persaud, accompanied her mother for shoplifting on several occasions; drug dealings; and is in the custody of a drug user with violations of Federal Narcotics Laws. Due to the countless serious accusations of Leila Jaksic reported against me, she was convicted for defamation for her lies. The record also clearly states a noncompliance of Court orders to provide access and visitation, of which the recidivism of the parental alienation campaign has now spilled over into the Canton of Vaud as the mother continues to wrongfully withhold our daughter from contact and relations with her father. Despite several months of Access Rights violations, in August 2020 another condition imposed on me by my ex-wife was carried out by the Curator of personal relations to give me an ultimatum to sign an illegal contract in exchange for access to my daughter. A matter of internet posts already being used in the mother’s parental alienation campaign over a year ago as a reason to wrongfully withhold my daughter from access rights. The Tribunal in Fribourg addressed the internet posts and never imposed any restrictions or contracts, but Ms. Jaksic and the Curator have teamed up to further continue violating Hague Access for a contract that violates International Treaty Laws by Switzerland imposing its laws on a US citizen abroad. For any child to be in the care of a person that uses drugs, sells drugs, theft and dealing with stolen goods, subjected to months per year of no contact with a parent that loves the child, being subjected to a malnourished vegetarian diet, and even an incident that I discovered in August 2018 of medical neglect (and have pictures of my daughter’s body scars and scabs); are all damaging to that child’s mental, emotional, psychological, physical, and moral development. To discourage or eliminate me, Ms. Jaksic organized an attack and assault on my life in February 2020, which hospitalized me and disfigured my face so that it took a few days before my daughter was comfortable with me again with my face looking like a monster.  was also screaming and traumatized as she witnessed the attacked on her father, violence, and blood. Ms. Jaksic obviously has no regard for Judge’s orders, laws, or rights of the child and father. It would be unlawful, immoral, irresponsible, and detrimental to my daughter’s life for her to be allowed custody of . I ask of the Justice of Peace to declare Ms. Jaksic an unfit mother and appoint all custody of  to her father. I have proof of all that I have mentioned in this letter, and should Leila Jaksic continue to have illegal custody of , I will have no other choice to take matters up with he International Treaty Body of Switzerland and public media outlets for individuals allowing child endangerment and violations of Convention on the Rights of the Child: Art. 3.2; Art. 3.3; Art. 5; Art. 7.1; Art. 7.2; Art. 8.2; Art. 8.2; Art. 9.3; Art. 10.2; Art. 18.1; Art. 18.2; Art. 19.1 in conjunction with Art. 33; Art. 27.4; Art. 29.1c; and Article 33. The attached petition is of 60 family members of that have been alienated and wish to be a part of the child’s life as our customs, traditions, culture, heritage, and lineage is being cut off by a parental alienation campaign of an unfit mother and protected by violations of Child Rights. The other hundreds that signed the petition are in support of equal rights for this father and justice for Thank you for your time and rulings in this matter. July 09, 2020 My 3 year old daughter, A. Persaud, deserves the right to relations with her father, entire paternal family, and the other half of her culture. My daughter needs to be allowed by the Swiss Judicial and Executive branches, more than just 3-5 hours per year to video call with her father; more than 40 hours per year when I travel around the world to visit her; and they need to stop denying the child the right to travel abroad with her father to visit her American family that have been waiting to meet her since she was born.  I believe that the civil rights of my daughter and I are being violated in Switzerland, and it needs to stop. The sadness of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins that have been waiting for years to meet and hold , needs to stop. My daughter bares dual citizenship with Switzerland and the United States, but the parental alienation campaign of her mother has only been aided by the Swiss Judicial and Executive branches involved in the execution of the Hague Convention application for Access Rights. Every child needs their father, and this father certainly needs his daughter. I hope that this petition will help us obtain equal rights and justice, for  mental and emotional development, for her caring family that she has been prevented from meeting, and a loving father that just wants his fair share of parenthood.